Four local soldiers wounded in Iraq

STEPHANIE HEINATZ

Four Virginia Army National Guard soldiers with the West Point-based 237th Engineer Company were seriously wounded in the Oct. 26 roadside bomb attack in Iraq that killed Spc. David E. Lambert, Army officials said Tuesday.

All four soldiers, with hometowns in Hampton Roads, are listed in stable condition. They were flown out of Iraq the day after the explosion and to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Ramstein, Germany.

Details of their injuries were not released.

Spc. Derek R. Banks of Newport News, a combat engineer who has served with the state's Guard for more than five years, remained in critical, but stable, condition Tuesday.

Sgt. James A. Corbett of Poquoson and Spc. Joshua G. Primm of Williamsburg, both combat engineers, had already arrived at the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for further treatment.

Pfc. Eric T. Holt, a combat engineer from Williamsburg with four years of service to the Guard, arrived Tuesday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"I am confident that these brave Guardsmen are receiving the best treatment our country has to offer," said Maj. Gen. Robert B. Newman Jr., the Virginia National Guard's adjutant general. "We will endeavor to support them and their families while they recover. I ask that Virginians continue to keep these soldiers in their thoughts and prayers."

The West Point Guardsmen deployed in late July on their second tour to Iraq since the United States invaded in 2003.

In December 2004, during the company's first Iraq war deployment, two soldiers from the company were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in a mess tent near Mosul.

Roughly 2,000 of the state's 7,500 Army Guardsmen and 1,200 airmen are deployed overseas, marking the largest number sent abroad since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Lambert, a 39-year-old from Cedar Bluff in southwestern Virginia, is survived by his parents. He was posthumously awarded, among other medals, the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.